


Godspeed Us to Sea

by stereomer



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-23
Updated: 2012-03-23
Packaged: 2017-11-02 09:39:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/367581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereomer/pseuds/stereomer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mob AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	Godspeed Us to Sea

**I.**  
  
"Well, there's this guy." Bob pauses and taps his fingers against his leg. The radiator starts up with a groan, making the walls buzz with low-pass frequencies.  
  
"Yeah, there's this guy what?" Frank prods. He hates when Bob does this: holds out on information unless he's absolutely sure that Frank knows there's something more. He rests his elbows on his knees and leans toward Bob in what he hopes is an earnest way, but Bob's huge stupid desk is sitting in between them and it isn't very effective. "Come on, man."  
  
"He needs someone. Maybe for about six months or a year."  
  
"Oh, Jesus." Frank sits back heavily; his chair squeaks in protest. "I told you, nothing long term. I just, I need something that'll tide me over for the time being. Temporary. That'd be nice. Sort of like a part time thing, you know? Paid vacations, the like."   
  
Bob grunts out a laugh. "That fucking mouth, man. You think anything in this scene is temporary?" He copies Frank's motion and his chair squeaks too, but it's an expensive squeak, one that says  _this is 100% new leather and I'm just breaking it in._  "One month out of prison and you're looking for temporary. I got nothing else. You've got a lot to learn, buddy."   
  
Frank isn't one to doubt this statement. The last time Bob had told him this, he'd woken up a week later in an alley with his ass in a puddle, one rough hand pulling at the collar of his t-shirt and another holding a 9mm that was imprinting a perfect concentric circle into his forehead.   
  
He’d managed to talk his way out of that one, though. Obviously. Those guys were a bunch of idiots, anyway.  
  
He clicks his teeth together. Sniffles, rubs at his nose with the heel of his palm. "Fine. Tell me who it is."   
  
"Toro." Bob doesn't hesitate this time. He lights a cigarette and exhales smoke through his nostrils. "Ray Toro. Heard about him?"  
  
"Kinda. I know the only thing people know about him is that they don't know shit."   
  
"Yeah, well. You mind?" Bob lifts his chin and Frank stands up halfway to push a silver ashtray towards him. "Thanks. That sounds about right, though. Toro mostly keeps to himself, but I can get in touch, tell him a little so-and-so about Frankie I."   
  
Frank just rubs at his 5 o'clock shadow slowly, turning his cheek back and forth against his palm. The scratching noise fills his head and he closes his eyes, feeling like he hasn't slept for days. But he doesn't stop, even when Bob asks, "What were you in for again? Shit, I didn’t even hear about it until you told me."  
  
"Arms dealing. Assault. Battery," Frank recites.  _Fuck._  
  
"Working our way through the alphabet, huh? Listen, I gotta tell ya Frank, Toro's a nice guy but he works in some deep shit. He’s got beef with a lot of people, and this isn't cops and robbers they're playing. You might just end up being a patsy, or you might end up making nice visits to not so nice people at three in the morning, and sometimes you might change clothes four fucking times a day because red is hard to wash out after it sets. Do you get it?"  
  
"Yeah, I fucking get it." Frank finally stops rubbing at his chin and grips his thighs instead. He flexes his fingers, as if testing out rusted joints and ligaments. The radiator's still buzzing and suddenly Frank finds himself wondering what Bob does down here all day. Probably counts and recounts money and whacks off to syndicated TV shows like Baywatch. Maybe he makes lists of people’s legs to break.   
  
"You really have nothing else?" But Frank knows the answer to this and apparently Bob knows he knows, because there’s no reply. He inhales the stagnant air and says, "Alright. Alright, I'm in. You said you could get in touch with him, right?"  
  
Bob eyes him warily, if even with a little pity. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll give you a call in about a week."   
  
"Fine." Frank doesn't really think 'thanks' is the right word for this. He grabs his jacket off his lap and starts climbing the stairs. His hands are jittery. He takes each step on his toes.   
  
"You're gonna get yourself killed, kid."   
  
"Get a new chair for guests next time, will you, Bob?" Frank calls back. He presses his hand against the basement door and pushes it open.  
  
  
*  
  
  
Exactly a week later, the phone trills from where Frank had stuffed it under his pillow the night before. He tries not to be annoyed, since he knows that the landline service is going to be cut off by the next month.   
  
“Hello?” He tries to cough away his croaky morning voice before deciding it’s too much trouble and reaches over to the nightstand instead. Bob’s voice crackles over the line. Frank can even hear the radiator going in the background, can practically smell the smoke that’s probably streaming out of Bob’s mouth.   
  
“You owe me. Today, two o’clock, that old meat warehouse by the docks. He wants to see you.”  
  
“Who?” Frank fumbles with the phone and manages to shove it between his ear and his shoulder as he lights a cigarette.  
  
“Toro, you fucking idiot. Where’s your head?”  
  
Frank inhales as he rolls onto his stomach and props himself up on his elbows. “Sorry, I’m just a little tired from fucking your mom all night. Thanks, Bob.” He hangs up without bothering to wait for Bob’s reply, throwing the phone back onto the pillow and swinging his body out of bed. It’s still early, judging by the angle of light hitting the windows, and the bathroom floor is slightly damp against the soles of his feet. He curls his toes in as he brushes his teeth with the electronic toothbrush that she’d left behind.   
  
(It was the last thing she had bought for him, before he had come home to  _I can’t do this anymore, you’re fucking suicidal_  and  _too many secrets ruin a person, Frank._ )  
  
The counter is cold against his elbows as he leans over. He spits, then spits again; rests his forehead on the back of his hand and spits again.  
  
  
  
  
 **II.**  
  
"It's open."  
  
Frank turns the handle at the sound of the muffled voice, knuckles throbbing a bit from knocking on the heavy door. His feet encounter thick burgundy carpeting; he stands awkwardly.  
  
"Frankie," Ray Toro declares, folding his hands on his desk. "Have a sit. Did you get the delivery okay?" he asks as Frank closes the door behind him and slowly takes a seat in the intricately detailed armchair across from Ray's desk.   
  
"I got it fine." Everything that was sent, he has on him: wearing the clothes, has the belt looped around his hips, cellphone in his right pocket, gun shoved into the waistband of his pants. "What's with the suit, anyway?" Frank rubs the corner of his collar between his fingers and peers down at himself. Black shirt, black suit, black aviators, and black wingtips that squeak when he walks. He feels expensive.  
  
"I like to think of it as a uniform. Actually, no, the word 'uniform' has such negative connotations. It's just something to make you look nice. You wanna look nice, right? Nice and sharp," Ray says with overexaggerated sibilance. He leans forward, lays out a dark green mat over his desk, and starts cleaning a gun.   
  
Frank shifts nervously. "While killing people? Sure, I guess."   
  
Ray sighs and carefully lays his gun down on his desk. "Alright listen, I told you that if,  _if_  it happens to end up that way, which it rarely does, you don't fucking call it 'killing people'. Okay?"  
  
"Okay," Frank says obediently.   
  
"Good. So, there're some vests over there, make sure to strap up before you head out." Ray looks at Frank for a beat, then resumes cleaning his gun, holding it up to the strips of light that stream through the Venetian blinds and peering through the empty barrel. "I told you you're going out today, right?"  
  
"Yeah, you did. With Gerard." Frank ambles over to the door and picks up a vest. He tries to rip apart the Velcro straps quietly.  
  
“He asked to do this, I have no idea why.” Ray blinks and shakes his head. “Get out of here, Frank. Gerard should be waiting for you downstairs. Try not to act like a dumbass and risk getting a bullet through your head. Don't get one of my men killed on some stupid shit like this.”  
  
  
*  
  
  
When Frank heard that he'd be driving around with Gerard, he'd imagined either a huge bald guy who sweated a lot and had a frequent eater card to that hoagy place on 2nd avenue, or someone with a handlebar mustache.   
  
When Frank pushes through the revolving doors and squints up at the sun, he sees a black car parked on the curb and a guy with bleached out hair leaning against it. He has the sharp cheekbones and thin wrists of someone who recently lost a lot of weight. He tilts his head slightly to the side as if examining something, then pushes himself off with his hips and uncrosses his arms. "Frank?"  
  
"Yeah?" Frank answers with wrinkled eyebrows and a hand cupped to his forehead to ward off the sun.   
  
"I'm Gerard." Gerard smiles to reveal pale teeth and sharp incisors. They shake hands and Gerard glances down at Frank’s tattoos for only a second. "You suited up?" Frank looks at him blankly until he reaches forward and knocks at Frank's sternum. There's a dull clunk of bone against Kevlar; Gerard lets his hand fall away just as Frank reaches up to touch the same spot.   
  
"Oh," he says dumbly. "Yeah, ha ha."   
  
"Just checking. Heavier than it looks, huh?" Gerard doesn't wait for an answer. Instead, he opens the passenger side door and Frank gets in with only a moment of hesitation. Gerard swings it shut as soon as Frank's foot clears the car frame and walks briskly around to the driver's side.  
  
"We going for a ride?" Frank asks as soon as Gerard clicks his seatbelt into place. They pull into city traffic, which is to say that they move about three feet.   
  
"Just some recon type stuff. No worries." Gerard smiles crookedly. He murmurs, “alright alright, Jesus,” when someone behind them honks. They start driving over the bridge near the edge of the city few minutes later. Frank’s staring out at the passing suspension cables when Gerard says, “So what’s with all the ink?”  
  
Frank looks at him. “On my hands?” He holds them out in front of him and Gerard glances over.   
  
“Nah, you got one,” Gerard taps the spot behind his ear, “right here, too.”   
  
“Yeah, I just. I don’t know. It’s just something I do, I guess.”   
  
“Hm.” Gerard pauses, and then abruptly asks, “Why does Ray trust you, Frank?”  
  
They’re off the bridge by now, moving towards the more sparsely populated part of the area. Frank suddenly realizes that he’s been incredibly stupid.   
  
(His first thought is  _oh Jesus, it’s over already._  He wonders if Gerard will even bother to bury him.   
  
His second thought is about the gun that’s still pressing into the small of his back, but now that he considers it, they’re probably loaded with blanks.   
  
His third thought is  _talk, you dumb fuck._ )  
  
“Because Bob put a word in for me,” he finally replies, forcing himself to make eye contact with Gerard. “Because I’m not a fucking squealer.”   
  
Gerard laughs a little and rubs a hand over his mouth. “Yeah.” He repeats himself, a little more loose and relaxed this time. “Yeah, yeah, no, I really do hope you’re not. ‘Cause you seem like a nice guy, Frank. You know? I just wanted to ask you face to face. Ray doesn’t hire new people often, but you said you knew Bob, right?”  
  
Frank nods, probably more times than necessary, and Gerard continues: “Right, and Bob’s cool, he’s a cool guy. Listen, you have nothing to worry about. We’re just going to make sure that a couple shipments make their way out. You weren’t scared, were you?” He’s smirking a little.  
  
“No, man. Come on.” Except he kind of was. Gerard seems slightly off-kilter, like the type to play Russian roulette with a smile on his face.   
  
“Mm hmm. Don’t try to pull some dumb shit now, because your gun’s filled with blanks.” Gerard grins as he pulls a sharp right and the car rumbles over patches of loose gravel before coming to a stop between some trees and the water.   
  
 _Shit shit shit._  The word goes around Frank’s mind like a merry-go-round.  _You almost broke after the first day._  Gerard’s talking to him, he realizes, and he blinks, leaning forward to pay attention. Count these boxes coming in. Count those going out. Okay.  
  
They return to the same spot the next day, and the day after that. Frank gets comfortable enough to start taking his shoes off to rest his sock-clad feet on the dashboard. He finds that Gerard seems to be perpetually unruffled: a calm observer rather than a hardened psycho, and maybe a little crazy in a way that's more camp than anything. Frank hopes – to God, Allah, Yahweh, motherfucking Lao Tzu or who the fuck – that this is because it’s not that bad of an occupation and maybe he’ll only get ankle deep in shit.   
  
It’s counting. He can do counting.  
  
It’s not going to be that bad.  
  
  
  
  
 **III.**  
  
Frank pushes up his sleeve and presses his finger into the crook of his elbow. "This one is from when I tried biking with no hands while completely blasted." He twists around and shoves the back of his collar down. "This is one from when I tried biking with no hands while completely sober."  
  
"Fuck that." Gerard lifts his sunglasses - green eyes, clumped, shadowed eyelashes - and points to his eyelid. "Fourth of July, 1985. I lit a firecracker and it wasn't going off, so I thought the smartest thing to do was to get on my knees and look at it from close range." He lets the glasses slide back down to his nose and grins.   
  
"Stupid." Frank puts his left foot up against the dashboard and hikes up his pant leg. "Biking to school in the fifth grade. My own dad sideswipes me at the first stop sign from our house."   
  
"Pussy," Gerard declares. "Here." He ducks his head and moves his fingers around his scalp, right behind his ear. "Feel it.”  
  
“Feel up your head before the second date?”  
  
Gerard snorts. Frank lightly places his fingers on top of Gerard's nails as Gerard moves his hand away and pushes his head further against Frank's touch. Frank can feel that there's a strip of scar tissue on his scalp, and he moves his fingers over it. The contact leaves a pause in their established rapport, a break in flow that leaves just enough time for Frank to start overanalyzing things before he speaks up.   
  
"Gross. What the fuck is that?"  
  
"Knifed in the head. In prison." Gerard grins.   
  
Frank blinks and returns his hand to his lap. Gerard takes off his sunglasses, looks down at his fingernails, and looks up again. "Kidding." He laughs suddenly. It's high-pitched and slightly hoarse, and Frank smiles too, says, "Jesus Christ," but he also wonders what Gerard looks like with his eyes focused and unblinking, tracking movements through crosshairs.   
  
"My brother actually dropped a lamp on my head while I was sleeping," Gerard continues. "He's a moody one." He looks at Frank for a beat, then says, "What about that?" while pointing to the side of Frank's neck.   
  
Frank automatically lifts a hand to touch it, even though he's long since memorized the feel of raised skin, its borders and shape, the smooth line down to his collarbone. He finally says, "Prison."   
  
Gerard stays silent. Frank can't see his eyes, but his lips tighten slightly. He slumps in his seat and untucks his shirt, revealing a smooth white stomach and a tiny pink half-moon just above his hip. "Same."  
  
“I thought you said you were kidding,” Frank says. He smiles quickly. It’s odd how it only takes a split second for things to change, how many twists and turns their conversations can take.   
  
“Well, I was about that one. Semantics, bro.” Gerard puts his sunglasses back on. Frank sees another guy walk out of the warehouse in the distance.   
  
“Why did you ask for this?” he asks as he watches. Gerard glances at him and Frank clarifies: “I mean, Ray said that you asked for this job. I don’t know about you, but if I count another box, I think I’ll have to shoot something or myself.”  
  
“Felt like I needed a break.” Gerard quirks his mouth into a smirk after a moment, and adds, “Being a badass is hard work.”   
  
Frank’s pretty sure that it’s an answer full of shit, but he doesn’t say anything, just counts his millionth fucking box.   
  
  
*  
  
  
To Frank's surprise, the next time Gerard picks him up, they don’t go straight back to the docks. Instead, Gerard drives into a neighborhood that houses a string of rundown apartments and gets out of the car without bothering to fill the parking meter.   
  
“Where are we going? Wait. Hey, wait up.”   
  
Frank jogs to catch up to Gerard, who’s quickly walking past several apartment buildings. He turns in to one and holds the door open for Frank.   
  
“Change of plans. Come on. This guy usually tries to sneak out the back before three o’clock because he knows that’s when we come around.”   
  
They end up taking the stairs after awkwardly waiting around for the elevator to show for about twenty seconds. The whole third floor is row after row of doors made of wood that’s cracking into strips. Gerard stops in front of 9C, except the 9 is hanging upside down on a single small screw. He knocks and calls out: “Hey. Scimeca.”  
  
Frank looks down the hallway and back over his shoulder, making sure it’s empty as Gerard yells again. When there’s no answer, Gerard rolls his eyes while facing his palms upward.   
  
“Drama queen,” Frank says.   
  
“Shut the fuck up.” Gerard kicks a solid foot against the door. When it bangs open, Frank catches a glimpse of someone hurrying into the bedroom. Gerard runs, but the door slams just before he can catch up.   
  
“Come on Nicky, don’t shit your pants. We just wanna talk and remind you about some stuff. Your own walking and talking datebook, Nick! How about it?” Gerard slaps an open palm against the door.   
  
A look around the apartment is simultaneously depressing and hilarious. Empty boxes of Cap’n Crunch are strewn all over the floor of the tiny kitchen to the right. Chinese takeout bags and paper plates sit innocently on the carpet, and to the left is what Frank can only call a fucking shitload of porn.   
  
Gerard emerges from the hallway and makes a looping motion with his finger. “High as a motherfucking kite.” He gestures to the mirrors that are lying face up on the coffee table, their surfaces dusted over with a fine white powder. “I’m surprised he didn’t lick it off.”  
  
“This is so sad,” Frank comments. He walks over to the TV and picks up an empty video box. “’Battered Buttholes’,” he reads outloud. He snorts and picks up another one. “’Cunt Caves’.”   
  
Both of them find this equally as funny. “Fucking,” Gerard manages to squeak out. “ _Alliteration._  Holy shit.” Frank laughs and laughs; it’s actually genuine, and he doesn’t even notice the bedroom door opening. When he looks up, there’s a guy standing at the edge of the room wearing only a pair of loose boxers.  
  
“Nick!” Gerard says brightly, coughing away the vestiges of laughter. “Looks like you’re doing well, huh?” He gestures to Nick, who hugs himself and looks at both of them with wide eyes. Gerard peers at his forearms. “Jesus, Nick, are those meth scabs? Do you have any idea what’s in that shit? What’s in it, Frank?”  
  
“Amongst other things, gasoline and red phosphorus from matches, Gerard,” Frank states with a smile.   
  
“Listen, guys,” Nick stutters out. “I know I’m overdue, I just need a little – a little time to, you know, organize my money and accounts.”  
  
Gerard snorts. “You mean you need time to rob rich kids and grandmas with fur coats and walkers?”  
  
“Jesus Christ, man,” Frank says when Nick doesn’t deny it. He giggles. “That’s fucked up.”   
  
“Well, you guys are like, gangsters! You fucking – kill people!” Nick yells defensively.   
  
“Oh god, please don’t do that. Don’t do the whole ‘who-has-a-better-bag-of-morals’ thing.” Gerard rubs the bridge of his nose. “This is it, Nick. People are gonna be back in a week, and not everyone’s going to be as nice as we were today. Okay?”  
  
Nick finally looks defeated. “Okay,” Gerard answers for him.   
  
“Nice to meet you, Nick,” Frank says, taking a weird pleasure out of being an asshole. “Stay gold.” The door is still hanging open and he moves toward it, with Gerard behind him.   
  
He doesn’t know why he looks back over his shoulder; maybe the general state of things in that shithole warranted a second look, but what he sees when he turns is Nick charging at Gerard with a syringe in his fist.   
  
“Oh,  _fuck_  – ” Frank shoves Gerard to the side and slaps Nick’s spindly arms away. When his fist connects with Nick’s cheek, there’s a sudden but familiar blooming of pain in his hand. Despite that, he drops to his knees and hits him again. And again. The syringe rolls away as Frank shakes out his hand and squeezes his wrist as if to localize the throbbing.   
  
“Were you just about to fucking  _stab_  me with your shit-infested needle?” Gerard’s voice is unnaturally high-pitched. He walks over and stares down at Nick. Frank gets up, dusting off his knees and glancing uncertainly between the other two. When Gerard moves, he moves suddenly and Frank’s pretty sure he hears the crunch of teeth. Blood pools over the floor at a disconcerting pace.  
  
“Whoa, hey.” Frank moves toward Gerard, slightly flustered at his speed. “Hey, come on, I’m sure the neighbors can hear all this.”   
  
“Everyone’s probably out trying to score some  _fucking_  crack.”   
  
“Don’t waste your time here. This isn’t worth it.” Frank wraps his hand around Gerard’s forearm. He feels braves enough to pull a little, and so he does. “Come on,” he says again.   
  
Gerard finally follows. They leave Nick groaning pathetically on the floor, and neither of them bother to close the door behind them. It’s only when they reach the stairwell that Frank lets go of his grip on Gerard.   
  
“I just got this thing about needles, you know?” Gerard’s voice echoes down between the floors, clashing against the sound of their footsteps.   
  
“Yeah. Me too.” They push the doors open. Frank sticks his sunglasses on his nose and lights a cigarette. He ends up needing two more in addition to a few swigs off his newly acquired flask to calm down once he figures out that he actually didn’t give a fuck about Nick or his teeth. He had been scared for Gerard.  
  
(“You’ve got a hell of a right hook,” Gerard says to him later. He lets him examine his hand and only twitches his jaw when Gerard presses on the sore spots of bone with cold fingertips. His flask is empty by the time Gerard finally lets go.)  
  
  
*  
  
  
They stop counting boxes three days later and start making rounds on Nick’s friends instead. Frank doesn’t really mind, as long as things don’t go awry and Nick keeps his needles far, far away; he’s gotten robbed enough times by meth-heads to find some sort of grim satisfaction in all of it that doesn’t lay as deep beneath the surface as he would have hoped.   
  
In the absence of tracking boxes, he starts counting other things in his life: Gerard takes him out to lunch six times in two weeks, touches his back four times, and looks at him through the rearview mirror when he’s sitting cross-legged in the backseat, carefully piling money into neat, shallow rows in a briefcase.  
  
“What?” Frank asks, letting a smile pull at the corners of his mouth. Gerard just says the word back and gazes forward again, dodging the question. Frank lets it go, but he carefully memorizes that look; stows it away into a small corner of his head to think about during silences.  
  
  
  
  
 **IV.**  
  
They’re in a dive bar across the street from the building that Frank wants to call ‘The Clubhouse’, but it’s really just a nondescript place that Ray mainly operates out of. A pithy amount of people are slouched in various corners, the usual “before four p.m.” crowd full of divorcees and depressed singles. Frank stares at his reflection in the mirrors that line the walls. He catches Gerard looking at him through the mirror every once in awhile too; just as Frank’s about to say something about it, the door opens and closes, letting in a short blink of sunshine that’s gone just as quickly.   
  
Gerard says, “Hey,” in a surprisingly warm way and Frank looks up to see that sharp Way chin and deep-sunken eyes, except on another face. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“I just had to drop something off,” the guy says. He pushes his glasses up with his palm and sniffs.   
  
"This is my brother Mikey," Gerard tells Frank. He tilts his head toward the guy as he swirls his glass around slowly, letting the ice cubes clank together. It’s water, though, because he doesn’t drink, but Frank figures that’s okay because he’s been drinking enough for the both of them nowadays.  
  
"The brother who hit you with a lamp while you were sleeping?" Frank asks. He takes a cue from Gerard and sips at his own drink, wincing a little as the vodka makes its way past his throat.  
  
Mikey easily swings his legs over the barstool next to Gerard and sits down. The cushion sighs with the weight. "You make me sound like a  _Clue_  character." He waves off the bartender and just drags a bowl of peanuts toward himself.   
  
“The brother in the bedroom with the lamp.” Frank smiles. “I like that.”   
  
“That’s a shitty weapon, though. What’s a step up from a lamp?”  
  
“A blowtorch?” Frank suggests. When Mikey nods thoughtfully, Frank lifts his chin at Gerard. “Watch out, Gee, your head’s about to get crisped while you’re sleeping.”   
  
“Ha.” Gerard smiles dryly.   
  
Frank straightens up to look at Mikey from over Gerard’s head. “I’m Frank, by the way.”   
  
“Yeah, I heard about you. The Kessler job, right?” Mikey nods. Gerard sits up, too, blocking Frank’s view. He gives a tiny shake of his head and says, “Mikey,” at the same time Frank says, “What?”  
  
“Oh. I guess I should go.” Mikey grabs a handful of peanuts and slides off the stool.   
  
“Leaving already?” Gerard asks, a little sharply.   
  
“Got errands to run. I’ll call you sometime.” Mikey pats the counter. “Nice to meet you, Frank.” There’s that quick leak of daylight again and Mikey’s gone.   
  
“That was weird,” Frank comments after a brief silence.  
  
Gerard shrugs. “He knows I don’t like it when he hangs around here. Tried my hardest to keep him away from things, you know? I don’t really see him much these days.”  
  
“Mm.” Frank doesn’t really know what to say. He downs the rest of his drink instead. His head feels a bit fuzzy afterwards, so he lays his forearms on the counter and rests it on the back of his hands as he watches Gerard finish his drink.   
  
  
*  
  
  
Frank sticks his head around the corner to peer up and down the sidewalk. His watch says 5:28; it’s getting colder a lot more early these days, and the people passing by are few and far between. He rubs his hands together and coughs once. He starts walking towards the diner. The bay windows facing the street show waitresses with their hair pinned into a tired bun, a few slow-eating couples, and a lone head of brown hair peeking up over a corner booth.   
  
“You’re early again,” Frank states, sliding into the booth and pulling off his scarf with one hand.  
  
“Yeah, and you’ve just been waiting around in that tiny alleyway again. Is it that hard to just meet me when you see me?” Mikey looks slightly annoyed. His fork is still poked into the midst of scrambled eggs that are almost completely black with pepper.   
  
“I actually just got back from having a little party with Gerard and some friends of this kid, Nick Scimeca. Your brother's got a real elbowing technique by the way, you should tell him that.”   
  
“He isn’t eager as hell to kick some debt-ridden addict around or anything. You think he took that fucking watch job with you because Ray made him?”  
  
The waitress walks up to the table, pen poised over an order pad that’s only carbon copies. “Yeah, just a large coffee please,” Frank says.   
  
“You’re gonna get an ulcer,” Mikey says with his mouth full.   
  
“According to everyone else, I'm about a millimeter away from getting a bullet to the head at any time. I think I can risk an ulcer.”  
  
Mikey doesn’t say anything, just picks up his water and slurps at it.   
  
“Dude, I was kidding.” Frank holds his hands up. “I’m just their fucking watchdog and the guy who wields the two by four because everyone else wants the baseball bat. It’s so fucking cliché, you wouldn’t know what to do with yourself, Mikes.”  
  
“Chief Vales wants you to start checking in more,” Mikey replies, ignoring Frank. “He wants to know how far you are.”   
  
“How far am I from what? Or who?”  
  
Mikey raises his eyebrows. “Who else?”  
  
“Listen, it’s impossible. I haven’t seen him since my little initiation. You know he barely even comes out his office, let alone the fucking building. You wanna just ring a bell and lure him out?” He squints. “Oh, yeah. Way to mention Kessler yesterday. The biggest thing I’m not supposed to know about.” A cup of coffee slides to a stop in front of him, sloshing liquid all over the place. He picks it up and takes a sip anyway.   
  
“I was trying to get Gerard to think about putting you in on it. You’re supposed to get close to Ray so he brings you along to the fucking Kessler deal. That’s where we’re  _supposed_  to get him.”  
  
“Well, obviously the guy doesn’t trust very well. He’s shutting me out, I get dumb orders from practically everyone else but him and I’ve heard nothing about Kessler. I’m getting real good at counting boxes, though. With any luck, multiplication isn’t too far off.”  
  
“It’s a simple job, Frank, and you’re doing it so well,” Mikey says sarcastically.  
  
Frank puts his elbows on the table and ducks so his face is in Mikey’s line of vision. “You think I’m not doing my job? I’m not doing my fucking  _job_?  _Fuck_  you Mikey, do you have any idea – ” and then Frank realizes that he has no idea either. This is all just fucked up and stagnant and the only thing he knows for sure is that his knuckles are swollen beyond belief. In addition, some fat fuck, one of Allman’s guys, had stomped on his foot during a scuffle four days ago and two of his toes had been broken.   
  
“Ray didn’t hire someone to be close and buddy-buddy with him, asshole. He hired someone to watch shipments, slap some people around, and that’s it,” he hisses. "The stupid thing is, if he finds out about me, I'm dead. I don't know, that seems like a high trade for going after deadbeats and counting some goddamn boxes."  
  
The waitress refills his coffee from a height of two feet. He scrubs a hand over his face and blinks rapidly. Mikey still hasn’t said anything. Frank waits for another moment and when it remains silent, he downs half his coffee in one gulp and starts moving out of the booth.   
  
“You’re a bastard, you know that, Mikes? Just an asshole squealer who’s putting everyone’s neck on the line for a chick. No, I don’t have Toro. No, I can’t get close to him.” He leans close until Mikey is staring back at him defiantly. “But I could have your brother in a fucking heartbeat.”   
  
  
  
  
 **Prologue.**  
  
“Are you sure about this?”  
  
“I’ve been undercover before.”   
  
“That was once for petty theft and some fuckheads trying to beat up on old ladies. This is not that.”   
  
“Do you think I can do it?” Frank doesn’t know what he’s looking for: validation, reassurance, or a bullshit answer. He looks around at the walls that are covered in plaques and certificates. A closer look would reveal that some of them were pretty bogus; golf tournaments, graduating from some night class.   
  
Chief Vales shrugs. “Doesn’t matter what I think. I’m not gonna be the one playing bad guy for eighteen hours a day.”  
  
“How’d you get close to Toro anyway?”   
  
“I know your old friend Bob has some connections with him. But the bulk of it came from someone else.” Vales tosses an open file onto the desk and Frank scrapes it toward him. A familiar black-and-white photo of a relatively young guy stares back. “You seen him before?”  
  
“Gerard Way,” Frank recites from memory. “Right hand man?”  
  
“Almost one of them, information wise. Doesn't really like dipping his hands in the dirty work, from what I can tell. Anyway.” He leans back in his chair with a smug look. “We got his brother.”   
  
Frank is genuinely impressed. “How?”  
  
“He’s been working with us for awhile now. Told us all about the planned deal with some guy named Kessler. Besides the usual dumb shootouts and drug deals, Toro’s been lifting military grade weapons and technology with plans to sell – although I can’t say much for the technology, it’s not doing us much good, is it?” Vales laughs to himself, the big heaving breaths of someone who now spent most of their career behind a desk. “Look, I just didn’t tell you in case you went mouthing off to the wrong person. I know how you get Frank, you start talking some dumb shit sometimes.”   
  
Frank ignores this. “What does he want?”  
  
“Complete exoneration if he gets us Toro.”   
  
“Well he wasn’t really involved with things, was he? Just an obligation to hang around, as far as I’m concerned. Seems like a good deal.”  
  
“Complete exoneration for both him and Gerard.” The Chief gestures for him to look at the file. Frank flips through the records, some yellowed with age, some still crisp and white, and all covered with bluntly typewritten letters. Apparently this Gerard guy wasn't one to go around killing people and then hoarding body parts, but the list was still fairly long: arson, grand theft, assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery –   
  
“Those are just the ones that stuck. He's probably blown the heads off a handful of thugs, but we can't prove it and we don't really care. Let them work it out between themselves, you know,” Vales says bluntly. He examines his fingernails and sighs. “Listen, I’m not going to be your dad and give you a pep talk. Undercover is hard, it’s dirty, you’ll probably drive yourself crazy trying to keep things straight. You get involved too easily, and that’s what worries me. I’m asking you if you’re sure about this, Frank.”   
  
Frank closes the file and tosses it onto the desk. “Yeah, I’m sure.” What’s he got to lose, he wonders. A $700 per month apartment and a barely running Pontiac. A bag of dry bagels in the kitchen cabinet. An electric toothbrush. The Chief looks at him with a slight frown and for a moment, Frank’s afraid that he’s going to go for the pep talk anyway and say, “Your life means something, son.” Instead, he nods shortly.   
  
“Alright then. Your word. We’ll create a record for you, something about a short sentence for assault. You can lie and say you got that crazy scar on your neck from prison.” He hefts a pen between his thick fingers. “By the way, he’s waiting for you in Conference 2.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“Way.”  
  
Frank stands up and hesitates before he opens the door. “If he’s still hanging around with Toro, that means we’ll probably see each other.”   
  
“Yeah, so?”  
  
“So how do you know he won't turn and give me up?” Frank asks sharply.   
  
The Chief shakes his head. “That’s why I asked if you were sure about this, Frank. Work it out.”  
  
  
*  
  
  
Mikey Way is skinny in a way that only guys are skinny: tall, with long arms and a sharp chin. He looks up when Frank enters the room but doesn’t say anything.   
  
“Mikey Way.”  
  
“Frank Iero.”   
  
“I guess I’m famous now.”   
  
“The Chief said you’d take the assignment. Said you were crazy, always trying to get on cases like these.” It’s a scramble to the top, this power play, and it’s fucking stupid but Frank does it anyway. He figures it’s okay as long as he knows it’s stupid. Irony, or something.  
  
He pulls out the seat across from Mikey. “So what’s the deal? Quarter life crisis happens and you realize that you’re too soft for a life of making people miserable?” He lights a cigarette. “God, the things they would do to you in prison.”   
  
Mikey sets his mouth into a terse line. “I’ve been,” he says shortly.  
  
“Yeah?” Frank already knew this. “And it was, what, two days before your brother came and bailed you out?” Mikey stares down at his hands. “Better watch your temper. Boy, I hear you can get real riled up. A maestro with improvisation, aren’t you? I mean, Christ, using a toilet tank lid to almost kill someone, that’s some quick thinking right there. ”  
  
Mikey narrows his eyes; garish fluorescent light reflects off his glasses. “I was a kid. And I’m not here so you can act all fucking tough guy on me. I’m here to get me and my brother out.”  
  
Frank props his feet up on the table and blows smoke up toward the smoke detector. It blinks at him warily as he leans the chair back on its hind legs. “So, who’s the girl?” he asks in a casual voice.   
  
Mikey tilts his head with a blank expression.   
  
“Oh, come on.” Frank lets the chair fall back onto all four legs. “You’re telling me there isn’t a girl? You wouldn’t try to pull this off if there wasn’t anything else at stake. Really now, who is she?” He’s almost starting to doubt himself when Mikey answers to the tabletop.  
  
“She’s no one.”   
  
“That’s cute,” Frank says. He laughs a little and taps out a column of ashes onto the grey concrete floor. “People. They make you like them and then it ruins everything, doesn’t it?” The hand in his lap shakes a little. He’s not usually all good-cop-bad-cop like this, but fuck it, he’s scared. Things are going too fast already, he can feel it. Mikey slouches slightly less, as if he’s caught on to this fact.   
  
“Picture someone in your life, Frank,” he starts. “Someone who’s a good person, someone who tries to make you a good person. You would start worrying that something bad would happen to them, wouldn’t you? I mean, you would’ve been thinking about getting out of it all in the first place, but then they’d make you really consider it, wouldn’t they? Frank?” He speaks in a slow, lazy manner as if this whole thing doesn’t matter at all, or as if he knows that Frank’s apartment has peeling walls, a queen sized bed with only one pillow, and empty cigarette cartons all over the place. His mouth is twisted into a small smirk.   
  
“Fine.” Frank crosses his arms in silent assent. “Why not just turn Toro in yourself? You have all the information.”  
  
“Yeah, information and no evidence that he’s balls deep in dirty deals. He doesn’t trust me enough. I was never that close to him, Gerard made sure of that.”   
  
“Then why not just grab her hand and run off somewhere nice, like Atlantic City?”  
  
“You think if I just said, ‘Hey, I’m leaving, but I promise I won’t tell anyone anything I know about you, hand to God,’ that he would just let me leave?” Mikey sneers. “And when he doesn’t believe me and I leave anyway, who the fuck do you think’s gonna pay for it?”   
  
Frank pauses, trying to sort out all the panels of this story. He feels like he’s playing  _Chutes and Ladders_ ; there are countless ways that this can all fall apart. He’s suddenly tired, feeling the pull of exhaustion right behind his eyes. Mikey slumps down in his chair again, switching off the animation of the past couple minutes and returning to sullenly staring through his glasses.   
  
In a quieter voice, Frank finally states, “You would go through all this to save your delinquent of a brother.”   
  
Mikey puts his hands on the table and talks as if Frank was mildly retarded and deaf, all enunciation and hard syllables. “Exactly. He’s my  _brother_. The only family I’ve got left. Our parents being dead and all, he started when he was a kid and eventually it ended up like this.”   
  
“So Gerard has no idea about you,” Frank pushes. He crushes his cigarette out under a chair leg. A glance at the one-way mirror reveals sallow complexions smeared over both their faces. He stares at his reflection until he realizes that Mikey hasn’t replied yet, and he tries again: “Would he even want to leave?”  
  
“He’s not a bad person,” Mikey says sharply.   
  
“I’m not fucking saying he’s a bad person. I’m asking if he would even  _do_  this.”   
  
Mikey’s answer makes Frank regret everything in the past three days, particularly the part where he'd agreed to this. “He better.”  
  
  
*  
  
  
 _Play it naïve. Play it scared. You’re just a dumb kid who knows nothing about nothing._  
  
Frank doesn’t know if the Chief’s last sentence had been an order or a comment on his general being, but it’s not like it really matters at this point. He looks at himself in the mirror one last time. Everything feels oddly anticlimactic. He’s probably going to be throwing his life away for the better part of a year and all it boils down to is him standing in a badly lit apartment, trying to figure out what to say to himself.   
  
“You’re a fucking idiot,” he finally declares to the mirror. There’s a sealed envelope on his desk that’s thick with folded papers bearing things like his signature, a copy of his ID, and numerous letters starting with  _I, Frank Iero_ ; he pauses again when he realizes he has no one’s name to write on it. He ends up settling for scribbling  _To Whom It May Concern_  in triplicate, which he hates himself for because it’s just so fucking formal. Or informal, it could go both ways.   
  
He stuffs the envelope into the hole in the wall behind the TV and slams the door on the way out

 

**V.**  
  
Things happen in flashes nowadays.   
  
Sleeping. Waking. Yet another anniversary of being undercover rolling around, and Frank making sure to down enough Tylenol PM with Dewar's so that he sleeps through most of it. Examining himself in the mirror and finding that he's lost weight despite all the alcohol. Waking up from a dream he has of himself pushing Gerard up against a wall. Taking a swing at Mikey the next time they meet.  
  
"Pull yourself together," Mikey says almost disgustedly, holding Frank's arm at an angle slightly less than one required to snap his bones out of place.  
  
"Fuck you." Frank spits on the ground, still feeling that buzzing in his nerves and the bottom of his stomach, like he needs to  _do_  something. It's only when he goes limp in Mikey's grip that Mikey lets him go. He squats heavily, resting his elbows on his knees. He can't think, he can't plan, and he almost cracks when Mikey says his name, because his tone sums all of it up; just "Frank," with no pretension or sarcasm, like everything's right - or like everything's wrong and there's just nothing he can do about it.  
  
  
*  
  
  
“I can’t believe you made us meet out here,” Frank says in a low voice. He watches Chief cut into his hoagy. Barely been out of his chair for ten years and he’s one of the biggest slobs Frank’s ever met, but he cuts up his hoagy into neat pieces.   
  
“It’s less suspicious than someone seeing you walk right into the station,” Vales replies boredly. He pops a hunk of bread into his mouth and chews. “How you feelin’?”  
  
“How am I – you’re fucking kidding me.”   
  
“That Way kid says you’re not doing too hot.”  
  
“He’s a little asshole,” Frank says angrily, “and you know it. How am I feeling? I feel like I need to fucking accomplish something here, Chief, because this whole ‘let’s wait around’ plan isn’t sitting well with me anymore. You ever think about making an actual move to get this guy? I mean, planting me into his little operation was a good start and all, but, and no offense, but what the fuck? I haven’t seen you for months and you ask me how I’m  _feeling_.”  
  
The Chief listens to all this impassively. He takes a bite of a French fry and motions with the rest of it fisted in his hand. “This is your problem, Frankie. You get all heated up and emotional and bitchy, and then the probability of you pulling some dumb shit goes up exponentially. And you get too involved. Isn’t that why your girl left you? You let this take over your life.” He swallows. “Focus on the objective for once.”  
  
Frank doesn’t dwell on the girlfriend comment but instead thinks of Gerard. He realizes this and feels like he’s trapped in one of those medieval torture devices that pull limbs into different directions. “Fuck you, Chief, and fuck the objective, because it doesn’t even seem like there is one anymore,” he replies almost politely. He makes to get up. Vales grabs his forearm with a greasy grip.   
  
“Didn’t your parents ever teach you about patience being a goddamn fucking virtue?” He pulls, but Frank doesn’t sit back down, and he hisses, “Alright, okay. I’ll level with you. We need hard evidence. You know we do. We don’t  _have_  hard evidence unless you get yourself put in on that deal. I know you told Way that it was impossible, but I am not giving you a choice here.”  
  
Frank stands still. “Let go of me,” he eventually says, and shakes off Vales’s hand. “Is that it? Because it’s the last time I’m meeting you like this.”  
  
Vales sits back again and returns to demolishing his sandwich. “Yeah. Quit drinking and go bang a chick, Iero. I have no idea what’s making you so frustrated and antsy, but fuck it out of you or something and get back to thinking rationally.”   
  
  
  
  
 **VI.**  
  
It’s just that Gerard keeps fucking  _looking_  at him.  
  
  
*  
  
  
They’re in the car again. Frank feels like he spends half his life in there now. It’s probably about two in the morning, his eyes are throbbing from pressing binoculars to his face all night, and he’s horny as hell. These three things would probably have been enough to piss him off on a good day, but the flask in his pocket is almost empty and that just takes the cake. He pulls it out again and takes a quick, conserving swig.   
  
“You look like shit lately,” Gerard states.   
  
“ _Yeah_ , well.”  
  
“And you’re just full of creative, barbed insults.” Gerard glances at him quickly. “A little bit of a beard serves you well, though.”   
  
“Oh god, a compliment, I’m touched.”  
  
“What the hell is wrong with you?”  
  
Frank can think of many answers to this question. He still can't scrub the last conversation with Chief out of his mind. His ass hurts from sitting down. He’s barely made progress on this whole thing in months. He’s living a double life. It sucks how sleeping with a hooker is demeaning. It sucks how he doesn't really want to sleep with a hooker. Laws about liquor curfews need to be changed.   
  
He grunts.   
  
“Listen,” Gerard says. He rubs at his bottom lip until it’s bright red. “Not to get on your case or anything, but you’re acting like a sexually frustrated seventeen year old. Quit drinking and go out and get laid already.”  
  
Frank glares at him. “This isn’t about that.”   
  
“Yeah? Sorry if I was mistaken. All the fidgeting and crotch adjusting just misled me,” Gerard says loftily. It pisses Frank off.   
  
“Fuck off,” he mutters quietly, staring out the window. Gerard laughs. He laughs at odd times, which usually works to dispel tension in a strange way – he’d laughed when Frank had put the car into reverse and backed over a cat. He’d laughed when another one of Ray’s guys, Pete something, had tried to casually drag himself into the building with a bullet in his calf – but Frank doesn’t really appreciate it right at this moment. He pops the door open and gets out in a swift motion, slamming it behind him.   
  
“Hey,” Gerard yells. Frank can hear the echo of another door closing and footsteps catching up to him. He tries to shake off Gerard’s grip when he closes his fingers over his shoulder.   
  
Gerard repeats, “Hey,” and spins Frank around so they’re facing each other. Frank stumbles slightly over a crack in the sidewalk. “What the fuck is going on?” Lights from a nearby diner sharpen the shadows on Gerard’s face and smooth over his forehead. Frank tries to picture how he looks: probably red-rimmed eyes and chapped lips, spit thick with the remnants of alcohol coating his mouth.   
  
“Can you just…not,” Frank grits out quietly, letting his head drop down so that he’s staring at Gerard’s knees. There are five fingers still pressing against his shoulder, warm through the thin white cotton of his t-shirt.   
  
“I can tell,” Gerard begins, and his voice is surprisingly low but his eyes are narrowed, almost teasing, “that this isn’t for you. It’s not too late, Frank; just click your heels three times.”  
  
Frank laughs hoarsely. He doesn’t know what else to say but “Fucking campy as  _hell_.”   
  
He blames it on the alcohol later, as he’s done for everything stupid that’s happened since he was sixteen. He blames it on the fact that it was almost three in the morning in the hazy shadows of a city that was never completely asleep. But mostly he blames it on the fact that Gerard leans in and says, “You betcha, sister,” a little too close to Frank’s ear.   
  
Frank thinks of all the fucking looks that Gerard’s been giving him. He thinks about the fact that he can practically feel Gerard smiling against his neck, and that’s when he sees things shift.   
  
He pushes Gerard with cold hands until his back is against the letter decals of a store window, shoulderblades pressing into the “RING” of “CASSIE’S TAILORING”. Frank actually holds him there for a brief moment as they stare at each other in silence. Gerard doesn’t look surprised or even vaguely confused; when he deliberately lets his tongue peek through over the corner of his bottom lip, Frank says  _fuck it_ , lifts himself up on his tiptoes, and kisses Gerard with an open mouth and one hand wrapped halfway around the front of his throat.   
  
When he pulls away abruptly to start walking back to the car, he knows that he just might be in control for the first time. His heart is pounding like he’s on something, almost shaking at the edges of his vision as he opens the car door and gets back in. But it’s Gerard who opens the driver's side door a split second later and pushes forward to kiss Frank, and keeps pushing until Frank has no option but to lie down and get his legs tangled in the mess of the gear shift while kicking over everything in the cupholder. Gerard stops as soon as the drinks spill to the floor with a dull  _splat_.  
  
“Don’t fucking say anything,” Frank bites out, but Christ, he’s fucking breathless.   
  
Gerard looks down, watching Frank’s chest move in the glow of dulled, flickering streetlights. Frank forces himself to stay completely still, even though his foot is caught underneath the steering wheel and he can feel the parking brake digging into the back of his thigh. Reality is pushing in hard, and he doesn’t want to think about where he is right now, or what he’s doing. He feels irrationally angry, even though he knows that half of it is still the alcohol in his system but the other half is because of –  _this_.   
  
“Fuck you, Frank,” Gerard murmurs lazily. He presses the heel of his palm against Frank’s chest. “You either need to get in a fight or fuck someone hard, is that it? I mean, I know I've been baiting you, but how long have you been wanting to do this?”  
  
“God,” Frank groans, stretching out to try and get the aggression out of his limbs. He doesn't care. He honestly could not give less of a shit if Gerard's just been playing him for fun, because right now he’s buzzing like a string pulled taut, muscles almost trembling. He doesn’t mean to add on the “I’m fucking dying here,” but he does, with closed eyes, neck bared, and the top of his head pressed against the door.   
  
“Well, don’t let me keep you,” Gerard says, and there’s a sudden scrambling of bodies as Frank almost gets out from under him in a sudden flare of anger. They each get a punch in (Frank first, his knuckles splitting against the curves of Gerard’s teeth and Gerard right after, a stingingly quick jab to the cheekbone) before Gerard – grinning, with red rimmed gums – manages to pin Frank and shove a hand down his pants.   
  
“Calm the fuck  _down_ ,” Gerard hisses, and Frank’s pretty sure he calls him all the permutations of “fucking motherfucking asshole” that are possible, but soon after that he’s fucking Gerard’s fist and palming the back of his head as they kiss, if only to convince himself that there’s nothing wrong for at least these few goddamn minutes. It's an escape, they're just stand-ins for each other, and it means fuck-all because the only thing people want is instant gratification.  
  
That’s what he tells himself the first time, anyway. And the second, and the third, and all the way up till the twelfth time. Then he doesn’t think about anything else but the width of Gerard’s ribcage between his hands, and how he bites at Frank’s shoulder every time he comes; the small sigh afterwards that pulls at the corners of Frank's chest and makes his heart beat just a little faster.  
  
  
  
  
 **VII.**  
  
“Cut it out,” Mikey hisses.   
  
“What?” Frank is taken aback.   
  
“You’re staring. I feel like I’m under a goddamn microscope.” Mikey glares at him and the way his browbones throw shadows over his eyes makes him look almost exactly like Gerard.   
  
Frank shifts, sitting up slightly. “Sorry princess. You’re just so pretty, you know.” He picks up his fork again and jabs at a piece of cherry pie. “Are you going to debrief me or what?”  
  
“You smell like a brewery,” Mikey says in response. “And you look like you’ve just been hit by a bus. It’s real attractive, I gotta say.”  
  
“I  _feel_  like I’ve just been hit by a fucking bus,” Frank counters. There’s a swipe of carpet burn just under his right shoulderblade, and he feels it whenever he moves his fork. “Are you going to debrief me or  _what_.”  
  
Mikey sits back, all languid limbs and slow breaths. “No. It’s not like you have anything to report anyway. I’m a fucking telegram boy today.” He pauses long enough for Frank to start getting annoyed. “Chief says, put your head on straight and don’t get involved.”   
  
Frank can’t stop the laugh that bubbles up from his throat. “He said that,” he repeats. He imagines punching Vales in the face until he’s unrecognizable.   
  
“I’d say you should listen to his advice, man, ‘cause you look all kinds of fucked up.”   
  
Frank actually thinks he hears a sliver of concern in Mikey’s voice, and he almost can’t stand it because it’s just another unpredictable shift, another sign of change and unraveling edges. Mikey taps out a rhythmless sequence on the Formica tabletop and doesn’t meet his gaze.   
  
Even though he knows that people only say it when they’re not, Frank says, “I’m fine.”   
  
Mikey smiles for the first time Frank has seen, and it unexpectedly reminds him of the time stretch; exactly how long it’s been since he got into this, and how long it’s been since he closed his eyes and went off the rails. How long it’s been since he realized that he hadn’t really regretted any of it. It’s a sad smile – as if Frank would have imagined anything else – and guileless in the curve of lips. The skin on his back twinges again.   
  
“Don’t fucking go soft on me now, Iero,” Mikey says quietly.  
  
There’s a low murmur of voices as the waitresses change shifts. Frank wonders what Mikey would say if he told him everything. He scrapes his fork through the mess of filling on his plate, coating the prongs in a thick, syrupy red.   
  
  
*  
  
  
Frank gets wasted that night, steady and precise, almost like he'd planned it all out. Time collapses into black after his sixth drink and when he opens his eyes again, he sees Mikey hovering above him, reaching up to unclasp Frank’s hands from around his neck.   
  
“You’re a mess,” Mikey tells him.   
  
“Look at Captain Obvious over here,” Frank slurs out. He doesn’t question this situation, just lets his arms fall heavily onto the bed. “Hey.”  
  
Mikey looks down at him.   
  
“I like Gerard. I like your brother.” Frank giggles to himself and turns onto his side, pressing a cheek against the cool surface of his pillow. Mikey’s knees are in his line of vision now. Knobbly knees. Slightly knock-kneed. They move after a long while as Mikey walks over to his desk and scribbles something down onto a piece of paper.  
  
“Shut the fuck up, Frank. Get some sleep.”  
  
Frank doesn’t think he’s in a position to argue. He closes his eyes. By the time he wakes up, this exchange has also dissolved to static in his memory. When he sees a note lying at the foot of the bed, saying something about how Frank had called last night and never to bother him with stupid shit like that ever again, signed  _Pete_ , he doesn’t give it a second thought.   
  
  
  
  
 **VIII.**  
  
Frank carefully lights a cigarette. It’s deep into winter now, and his matchbook supply is suffering because of it. Plus, he’d gone up to two packs a day months ago. He squints sideways at Gerard and goes to undo his seatbelt, making sure that he’s still moving as he mumbles, “You wanna come up?”  
  
  
*  
  
  
Frank knows this whole thing is fucked up.   
  
There were no first, second, or third dates, none of the small talk and the stories, the coy looks and hesitant-but-not-really touches. Instead, it was missing buttons on his shirtcuffs, bruises smattered over his spine, the slide of sweat on leather seats and the stretch-jump of skin over it. The insistent memory of Gerard’s clear eyes, and how his rapid breaths hazed over the car windows and always made a tiny reservoir of condensation in the dip of Frank’s collarbone.   
  
Sometimes he thinks that this is all the knowledge he’ll ever need.   
  
Gerard’s standing at Frank’s doorstep. His gaze flickers over the saggy couch, the dining room table with mismatched chairs, the narrow hallway. “Quaint.”   
  
“Shithole,” Frank corrects. He’s a just little drunk, the kind that makes him brave enough to be bold without second thought. He throws his keys on top of the TV and looks at Gerard challengingly. “So, what the fuck? You’re not even touching me yet.”  
  
“Sassy,” Gerard comments. He leans in until Frank can feel his belt buckle pressing against his stomach, then takes steps forward toward the hallway. Frank takes matching steps backward. “I don’t even know where I’m going.”   
  
“First door on the left. God, I'm making this so easy for you. I would have made an excellent prom date.” Frank lets Gerard lead him into the bedroom, walking backwards until the backs of his knees hit the bed. He deliberately falls onto it and puts his arms behind his head, letting his shirt move up over his belt. “Ho hum.” He maintains the nonchalance, even as Gerard moves to straddle him, and repeats it: “Ho hum.”   
  
“I’ll fucking ho hum you, motherfucker,” Gerard says threateningly but with a quirk to his eyebrows. It subtly shifts the shadows on his face, angles of bones catching and releasing light, and Frank just looks, feeling abruptly, uncomfortably sober. Scrapes his teeth on the inside of his cheek and  _looks_ , because now there’s a familiar feeling in his throat that twists slightly in the space between his collarbones; the same feeling that’s been there for the past few weeks.  
  
He swallows. It doesn’t disappear.  
  
Gerard starts leaning into Frank's neck, but Frank startles both of them by suddenly reaching up and kissing him sweetly, just soft lips and a hand barely pressing against the nape of his neck. It’s oddly innocent; half of Frank hopes that Gerard doesn’t notice, but the other half wants him to reciprocate. After a slight, faltering pause, Gerard kisses back, just as chaste, and it makes Frank’s breaths come more shallowly. He slowly moves his other hand up Gerard’s arm until Gerard pulls away.   
  
“I.” Gerard makes another tiny noise, and then nothing else.   
  
Things seem off-balance now, like a strange, uncertain pause before gravity determines which way it will all crash down; like Frank's somehow steered them into some kind of silent bat country just by a simple touch. The only audible sounds are echoes of yelling somewhere in the distance and two sets of quiet breaths confined to the tiny space between them.   
  
Suddenly, he is acutely aware of where they are. A small, silent apartment in the south side of the city. Gerard, with his pale face and pale hair, straddling his waist and pushing his fingertips into the mattress. Frank, feeling like he just did something very stupid, with his own hands lying by his sides, passive and half-curled.   
  
He smiles crookedly. “At this rate, you’ll be able to get out a whole sentence by the end of the night.”   
  
Gerard closes his eyes, lashes impossibly black against the skin of his cheeks, and just breathes. “Fuck you,” he says at last, eyes still closed. He only opens them when Frank cautiously nudges a knee up against his leg.  
  
“Hey,” says Frank. “Hey, Gee.” He knows, he knows about everything that was and is and might be; he knew about all the possible endings to this as soon as it started, but he did it anyway, and now.   
  
And now.   
  
He moves his knee again and this time he reaches up and pulls on Gerard’s collar, too, pulls until their faces are so close together that Frank can see the shading of light and dark in Gerard’s irises. “Hey,” he says again more quietly, almost to himself.  
  
“What,” Gerard mutters. He finally kisses Frank again with cold lips, pushing forward so that Frank’s skull presses up against the cheap wooden headboard. He kisses like there's no turning back, and Frank can almost feel him think.  
  
(They fall asleep later with their shirts and pants on, shoes kicked to the floor.  _Don’t worry about it_ , Frank murmurs against his chin.  _Just don't_.  
  
 _You make me think about things_ , Gerard mumbles as Frank closes his eyes. He doesn’t explain; Frank doesn’t ask.)  
  
  
*  
  
  
“It's Nick again. I almost feel sorry for the kid. I’ll be over in ten, wait for me outside.”  
  
 _End of message. To delete this message, press seven._  
  
Frank pushes ‘7’ with his thumb. He’s about to walk out the door but he pauses, turning the doorknob back and forth. Before he can change his mind, he drags the TV to the side and retrieves the envelope from the wall. With a pen fisted in his hand and several sharp motions, he crosses out  _To Whom It May Concern_  and writes Gerard’s full name under it in careful block letters.  
  
  
  
  
 **IX.**  
  
It’s a Tuesday. Going beyond that to dates and months requires more thought, and Frank just settles for what he knows: it’s a Tuesday. Gerard seems on edge today, constantly sniffling or twirling unlit cigarettes around between his fingers before finally lighting one as they speed onto an overpass. They're driving to who-knows-where, except Gerard probably  _does_  know. He turns onto a highway and passing cars blend together in blobs of color.   
  
“So, why are you Ray’s best man?” Frank tries to diffuse the tension.  
  
“Why did he put you in on the Kessler deal?” Gerard replies immediately, as if he’s been waiting for Frank to say something. He smiles, but it’s that fake one that stretches his mouth sideways but not up or down.   
  
Frank exhales. He finally says, simply, “Because I asked him to.”  
  
“You must have asked him a whole fucking lot, because you’re way too green to even be put near this sort of thing for months.”  
  
“Listen, don’t get – ”  
  
“ _Fuck_  you Frank, if this thing falls through and you get caught, you’re fucked.”  
  
Frank laughs, dry and sarcastic. “ _I’m_  fucked? What about you? Why don’t you just say what you mean, don’t sugarcoat it like an asshole.”  
  
“Fine. Fine, I don’t want you to be there, alright? I don’t even understand why  _you_  want to. Christ, you’re making me – ” Gerard flips his visor down with a quick snap of his wrist. He doesn’t finish.   
  
“I’m not your little brother,” Frank bites out. “You don’t need to protect me, okay, just.”  _Just let me fucking do this. Let me do this so it can be over._  
  
“I'm not trying to be your holy motherfucking savior, okay, I just don’t want you to be in the middle if something goes down. I don’t want to be the one that has to - that has to  _fucking stuff your body into a trunk_  and dump you into the water. Alright? I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do that to anyone and I don’t fucking want to do it to you.” There’s a silence. Gerard plants his knees on either side of the wheel and lights a cigarette almost like doing so will erase what he just said.  
  
The sun beams in through the windshield as it sets and Frank flips the passenger side visor down too. He’s almost shaking from the argument; it makes him feel like being reckless and so he asks, “Then why stay?”  
  
Gerard glances at him quickly. It’s the closest thing to anxiety that Frank’s seen from him. “What?”  
  
“Why stay? I mean, I’m doing this for the money and hoping to God that I never have to anything that’ll keep me up nights. If you don't want to do this anymore - you said you were in prison for accessory, right? That’s not that bad. I just. You’re a good guy, I bet you could get cleared of everything if you just, turned some people in or something,” Frank finishes lamely. He wonders when this turned from an argument into an illogical plea. He blinks and lets out a short laugh. “I mean, why let the bad guys drag you down?”  
  
Gerard stares. “Jesus Christ, are you serious?” He continues without waiting for a response. “Because I’ve done some not so nice stuff too, alright? Fuck, this isn’t about bad guys and good guys, it’s about. It’s about  _us_  or  _them_.” He blows out smoke and forcefully rubs at his nose. “The world isn’t black and white, and I’m not a fucking saint, Frank. I don’t know where the hell you got that idea.”  
  
  
*  
  
  
Because the world is nothing if astute with timing, Frank watches someone die that night. It’s surprisingly quick, unlike some of the stomach wounds he’s seen. Some random crony loses half his head to a brick wall at point blank. He was probably a child molester and a murderer himself, but it doesn’t stop Frank from going home later and puking into the toilet with a half-empty bottle of whiskey in his hand. He doesn’t sleep until five a.m. and dreams not about the brain matter on the wall but about Gerard, arm still steady and outstretched, a tiny plume of smoke emerging from his gun.   
  
His ears are ringing when he wakes up. It’s still dark out. He finishes the whiskey.   
  
When he stumbles into the living room, Gerard’s sitting on the couch, staring at the blank TV screen. Everything is illuminated in shades of blue, that tiny space of color between night and dawn. Frank presses his hand against the wall and feels it vibrate along with the heater.   
  
("Quit fucking staring and let's get out of here," Gerard had snapped, except Frank had been sure that Gerard was staring, too. Oil mixing with blood, black with red, a gaping hole where the left eye should have been. That's all it took, Frank thought. A hole in your head and you were gone; just another sucker with his body draped over empty crates, free for public viewing. Just a hole in your head and it was over.)  
  
The couch squeaks and sags when Frank finally moves into the room and sits down next to Gerard. There’s a slight scent of cigarettes matted into the collar of his jacket and the side of his neck is pallid, but he’s warm. Whole. Frank leans in, touches his jaw with careful fingers.  
  
“You’re a good person,” he whispers into his ear. Quietly, desperately.   
  
The heater clicks off and now there’s a tiny buzz in the absence of sound. He presses his forehead against Gerard’s temple; the “I love you” is added on almost as an afterthought, just a fleeting wisp of words against Gerard’s ear.   
  
  
  
  
 **X.**  
  
“This whole thing’s about to collapse. Ray’s getting suspicious. I think someone saw us. That Wentz kid.” Mikey methodically tears a napkin into strips.   
  
Frank’s mind feels like mush. It’s four in the morning and he drove two hours to get to this diner in the middle of nowhere. “What’s the big deal,” he says stupidly. “I got you the dates and the times for the Kessler meetup. It’s done. If it collapses, we run.”  
  
“I told you. If we could run, do you think this whole ‘operation’ would have been started in the first place? He needs to be out of the picture.” Mikey practically spits out his sentence. In fact, he does, but Frank just silently wipes at his face.   
  
“God. Jesus Christ.” Frank presses the heels of his palms against his eyelids until all he sees is flickering black static, a private light show.  
  
“I was raised Catholic, asshole. Watch your mouth.”   
  
Frank blinks away the spots in his vision, but he’s still left with watery eyes and a dry feeling in the back of his throat. “And Mikey Way is making a joke. The shit really must be about to hit the fan.”   
  
Mikey smiles humorlessly. “You said the deal is only in a couple of weeks. Can you cover for that long?”   
  
A couple of weeks. A lot of hours leaving room for a leak to spring. Frank shrugs, shakes his head, nods, and shrugs again.   
  
“You know, Gerard – ” Mikey drains his coffee. “He likes you. He thinks you’re a nice guy. That’s why he was fucking pissed that Ray finally let you in on the Kessler thing.” He spins the empty cup around on its saucer and doesn’t look up. “He talks about you sometimes, when I see him.”   
  
So Mikey did know. Frank doesn't really feel like asking how; instead he thinks about the fact that Gerard is still at his place, sleeping on his side with his knees curled up and a hand under his pillow. Frank sets his forehead on the table and laughs, but it’s more him just saying, “haaaaa,” and he kind of feels like crying or beating the shit out of someone. Maybe both at the same time.  
  
“Here’s what I’m thinking, Mikes. I’m thinking that hanging around like this, even after I gave the Chief all the info on the who-what-where-when-hows of the Kessler deal, is a terrible fucking idea. I might as well put on my uniform and start marching around there with a giant police badge on my ass.” Talking about it is futile and it won’t change anything, Frank knows it, but he can’t help himself.  
  
“If you leave now, he’ll find you,” Mikey says quietly. “This has to be finished.”  
  
“I know. I know. I just don’t think I can – ” Frank doesn’t finish his sentence. For the first time, Mikey doesn’t say anything. He just grabs another napkin and adds to the growing pile of ripped paper.   
  
“You look terrible,” Frank says instead. He presses his hands to his eyes again.   
  
  
*  
  
  
He meets with Mikey again three days later, this time at two in the morning at a gas station on the state line. They stand in the shadows by the bathrooms and discuss plane tickets, documents, and times right down to the minute. Frank smokes furiously, despite the dirty looks from the gas station attendant.   
  
“How’s Alicia?”  
  
Mikey always says, “Good,” every time he asks, but this time he squints into the lights of a semi pulling in and says, “Scared.”  
  
“Tell her she’ll be fine.”  
  
“I do.”   
  
Frank throws the butt to the ground and kicks some rocks over it. “Okay.”  
  
“Okay,” Mikey echoes. Then, “You should tell him about who you are. Before everything goes to hell, I mean. You can trust him with that.” But he doesn’t look at Frank.   
  
Frank says what both of them already know. “It might fuck up the case.”   
  
(Maybe. Maybe he could. Fuck the case, fuck everything. He’s been turning it over and over in his mind, searching for the right opportunity, the right words. Every option ends with “so let’s get the fuck out of here because I can’t imagine this without you.” Corny as all hell; they might as well Bonnie-and-Clyde it off a cliff somewhere.  
  
He doesn’t know how to do this.)  
  
“Something might go wrong - it's just better if he doesn't know,” he adds dully. Mikey opens his mouth -  _you two are going to get killed trying to fucking protect each other_  - but all he says is, “Yeah.”   
  
They shake hands awkwardly. Mikey stares at him for a moment too long and then starts to walk away, long legs loping over the ground. He turns around before he’s out of earshot. “You’re almost done with it, Frank. It’s almost over.” His voice echoes in the dark, filling the expanse of empty space. “Let's all meet up in Atlantic City and fucking celebrate. Tell Gerard.”   
  
The last words are faint. Frank watches until Mikey passes the convenience store.  
  
It’s still dark outside when he gets home. He falls asleep on the couch and dreams about being in a car with Gerard, but Gerard’s in the passenger seat this time as Frank steers his shitty Pontiac with only a palm pressed against the top of the wheel. They trace the outlines of some city in the middle of nowhere as the sun chases them west.   
  
  
  
  
 **XI.**  
  
“I didn’t want you to see that for some reason. In the alleyway, I mean,” Gerard abruptly says. It takes Frank a moment to catch on to what he’s talking about.  
  
He shrugs. “It’s not like I’ve never seen something like that happen before.”  
  
“I know, but. You know.” Gerard rubs his nose in lieu of an actual sentence. The dryer buzzes. Frank gets off the orange vinyl chair and finds that the clothes are still damp. He deposits more quarters and the machine starts up again, rumbling along with all the background noise.   
  
“It’s fucked up enough as it is,” Frank starts.   
  
“So what’s a little more?” Gerard finishes. He has a strange, hard smile, and it's slightly distorted under the lights of the Laundromat. They’re surrounded by rows of white machines and white linoleum and white powdered soap. Frank feels overexposed. He rubs at his forearms and stands in front of the dryer, watching his clothes tumble around soundlessly.  
  
“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know, okay?”  
  
Gerard gets up and leans his back next to the dryer window with his arms crossed over his chest. It reminds Frank of the first time he’d walked out of Ray’s office; the first time they’d seen each other.   
  
“Listen,” Gerard says suddenly, ducking his head. “I’ve been thinking about.” Frank stares at him as he pauses, letting the crown of his head catch and reflect light. He blinks when Gerard moves again.   
  
“Leaving.” Gerard looks up at Frank through his eyelashes. “I’ve been thinking about us leaving.”   
  
It’s awhile before Frank speaks. “It kind of sounds like you’re asking us to get a running start out of a pool of quicksand,” he finally says.   
  
“I know. I’m just saying I’ve been thinking about it. Like dreams, how they just happen. It’s like that.”  
  
“I just. Don't say that to me. Fuck.” Frank rubs a hand over his eyes. “It’s complicated,” he says, and the word leaves a bitter taste.  
  
“It’s not that complicated. We couldn't even if we wanted to.” Gerard smiles, a small tug at either side of his mouth. He steps forward and wraps an arm around Frank, placing a hand firmly against the spot where the curve of his spine is the steepest. “If there's something you need to say, you need to do it now,” he says quietly.   
  
Something he needs to say. Frank wants to tell him to get in the car, they’re leaving right fucking now. Just rip off the rearview mirror and drive toward the sun, Gerard.   
  
Frank closes his eyes. He doesn't think Gerard would even believe him, which is the worst part. The dryer buzzes, a hard and jagged noise that Frank can almost feel in his bones.  
  
  
  
  
 **XII.**  
  
The Kessler meeting is two days away and Frank can only stare up at the ceiling while still wearing his clothes, with sore eyelids and no sleep. He finally drifts off around 6:30am, and the buzz of his cell phone on the nightstand is what wakes him up. His sight is bleary with exhaustion and it takes him awhile to see Gerard’s name displayed over the screen. He shuffles out the front door and rests his elbows on the railing before flipping the phone open.  
  
“Hello?” he croaks.  
  
“What the fuck is going on, Frank?”   
  
“What?” He tries to blink away the sleep from his eyes.  
  
“It’s about Ray. Tell me what you did,” and it’s only now that Frank can hear how Gerard’s voice is tight and controlled. He sounds scared.   
  
“What does Ray want?” Gerard doesn’t answer. Frank asks again. “Gerard? What does he want you to do?” Saying the last three words at the end somehow triggers a sluggish wave of fear in him.   
  
“I don't fucking know, all he said was he'd been suspecting for awhile and. Just start running to somewhere safe. Please? Okay? I’m going to come to you, I don’t know how many people he put on this – ”  
  
Gerard’s voice gets cut off mid-sentence.  _No no no no_. “Fuck. Gerard?” Frank says his name practically a dozen more times before something clicks on the other end.   
  
“Hello! We’re sorry to tell you that service to this cellphone has been disconnected. To speak to a representative about this, please call – ”  
  
“ _Fuck_ ,” Frank hisses to himself. A deep panic starts to set in, squeezing at his lungs. He throws the phone off the balcony and, not even bothering to lock the door, runs down the stairs to the payphone at the edge of the apartment complex. The numberpad feels cold and impersonal against his finger. He softly bangs his head on the wall of the phonebooth over and over as the call goes through.   
  
“Come on come on come on – ”  
  
“Hello?”  
  
It’s a girl. Alicia. Frank stops moving. He tries to calm down. “Yeah, um. Is Mikey there?”   
  
“Hold on just a sec.” Some rustling and Mikey comes on.   
  
“Yeah?”  
  
He sounds slightly breathless; probably in the middle of packing bags and getting ready. Frank wraps his hand around the metal-coated phone cord and pulls as the tears come unexpectedly. “You better go to Atlantic City, motherfucker,” he says, before his voice can get too choked.   
  
“Frank?” A pause, and then in a slightly lower, panicked voice: “Where are you?”  
  
Frank presses his forehead against the coin slot and tries not to make noise. “It’s over, Mikey. Get the fuck out of here.” He almost doesn't believe himself. It's over.   
  
“ _Shit_. Frank? Frank? Answer me, you fuck – ”  
  
Mikey’s voice fades out and cuts off with a clink as Frank hangs up the phone. He dials again. It goes straight to a machine this time and he blinks, trying to get organized, trying to map everything out in his mind.   
  
“Gerard, listen.” He speaks hurriedly, despite the fact that he knows a machine isn’t going to hang up on him. “I’m a cop. I know Ray’s going to tell you everything, I don’t know if he has already, I just. I was undercover, we were supposed to move in on him as soon as the Kessler job went though. I need you to know that it wasn’t about that, it isn’t about that anymore.” He’s rambling again, but who the fuck cared. “You remember, you said, you said there’s no such thing as good guys or bad guys, right? Us or them.” A black car turns the corner up ahead and he curses quickly, ducking his head and trying to think of any roads he can cut across.  
  
“I can’t –  _fuck_. There’s an envelope at my place, it’s behind the TV, okay? It’s in the hole in the wall – ”  
  
  
  
  
 **XIII.**  
  
He’s running.   
  
There’s more than enough adrenaline pumping through his system, but the problem is that he doesn’t know where the fuck to go. Objects flash by in pause and then fast forward: street signs, stopped cars, people with startled expressions.   
  
 _Just start running to somewhere safe. I’m going to come to you._  
  
He runs toward the precinct house.  
  
  
*  
  
  
Two days ago, Gerard had been putting on his pants as Frank sat at the edge of the bed, still in his undershirt.   
  
“You said you’d been thinking. If something came up,” he had started, raising his voice over the clink of Gerard’s belt buckle. “If something came up and everything, all this, dissolved tomorrow. Would you really leave like you said you would?”  
  
The sun had been rising, slowly spreading an orange-yellow tinge over the carpet. Gerard had looked over to the window and then back at Frank, who had wondered if Gerard would snap at him for bringing it up. Finally, he’d just said, “Yeah. Yeah, I would.”   
  
“Okay.” Frank had nodded; tucked his legs up against his chest and rested his chin on his knees. “Okay.”   
  
Gerard had looked at him steadily. “Okay.”   
  
  
*  
  
  
He turns another corner and suddenly there they are, three guys with slightly familiar faces. The other open end of the alley is blocked by a black car, engine running idly. He can see the shadow of a driver, and  _oh, it’s gonna be one of those_ , a nameless body with nothing to show for it except for blank, glassy eyes and tire marks on the asphalt.   
  
( _Talk, you dumb fuck._ )  
  
“Hey,” he begins. His mouth doesn’t seem to be working very well. He puts his hands up. “Hey. Listen. This is fucked up. I was a fucking patsy. This is all a mistake, alright? I counted fucking  _boxes_  for a year, I don’t know anything!”   
  
One of them shrugs. Frank finally recognizes him as Pete, the guy with the bullet in his calf, the one Gerard had laughed at all those months ago. The one who'd probably tipped Ray off. “Sorry, Frankie. Can’t take a chance.” A soft swish of fabric and now there are three guns, three hollow circles facing him like tiny gaping mouths.   
  
Frank smiles disbelievingly. This is it. In a fucking alleyway, three city blocks from the station. This isn’t it.   
  
“Frank!” Gerard suddenly yells from behind him. He catches blond hair in his periphery; starts to turn so he can tell him that this is stupid, it isn't supposed to turn out like this, so it’s going to be fine.   
  
  
*  
  
  
“Are we ever going to talk about this?” Frank signaled the waitress. He hated the word ‘us’. He didn’t look at Gerard.  
  
“Did you want to?” Gerard asked.   
  
Frank tried to think about it. He tried to imagine all the possible outcomes. Maybe not having one would be better. “Actually, no. It is what it is,” he added.   
  
“And what it is is good.”  
  
“Right.” It felt like a safe moment to smile, and so he did. “Right.”  
  
  
  
  
 **XIV.**    
  
He hears the noise a split second before his feet leave the ground, body pushed up towards the sky in a moment of being lighter than air. It’s a peculiar feeling; it reminds him of the time he’d stared up at his mother as a kid, glassy-eyed and woozy from a carbon monoxide leak in their house.   
  
When he lands, the back of his head hits with a sickening crack that desaturates his vision in a flash. His first thought is that  _they fucking missed, those fuckers,_  before his hand comes away from his chest thick with red, blood coating the bridges between his fingers. He tries to remember what he learned in training – ventricles, atria, sinoatrial node. Pulmonary artery. Tricuspid valve. One of those go and you're fucked.  
  
There’s more gunfire originating and ending in places he can’t see, and now he tastes blood in his mouth, too. Tires squeal away and the smell of burning rubber reaches his nose. He feels his heart pumping rapid, almost helpless, beats through his body, and he tries to breathe as he stares up at the sky.   
  
 _One.  
  
Two.   
  
Three.   
  
Four. _  
  
He keeps counting.  
  
  
*  
  
  
Gerard opened the door and walked back toward the kitchen. “Hey.”  
  
“Holy fuck,” was what Frank said in reply. He stared at Gerard’s bloodstained shirt. It stuck to his skin in places and glistened when he moved.   
  
“Relax, it’s not mine. You got here quick, I just walked in.”   
  
The kitchen faucet was running steaming water into a bowl that was sitting in the sink. Frank hesitated for another moment before stepping inside and slowly closing the door. It was a small studio apartment on the other side of town, closer to their usual spots of business. He noticed that the bedsheets were still crumpled. There was also a slightly oily handprint on the wall by the bed. He looked away.   
  
“What did you need…” Frank trailed off when Gerard turned, lifting the bowl out of the sink and placing it on the counter. He threw a handtowel into it. “ _Christ_. Are you okay?”  
  
“Fine.” There was more blood smeared over the side of his mouth, spilling onto his jawline. It was beginning to dry into flakes, but there was a fresh line of it making its way down from a point above his right eyebrow. “It looks worse than it is. Everything on the shirt is from some asshole falling onto his own knife.”  
  
Frank tossed his jacket on top of the coffee table and walked over to him. “Just help me clean up a little,” Gerard said unnecessarily, even as Frank reached for his chin. He held it between his thumb and index finger and Gerard let his face be tilted up.   
  
“What the fuck happened?” Frank squeezed the towel out and began swiping away the blood in slow, even strokes. Gerard blinked rapidly against the touch.   
  
“Allman’s guys again. It’s like fuck, find something better to do. I was on my way back from buying a goddamn loaf of bread. Let a man eat first, you know?”  
  
Frank snorted. He peered more closely. “This might need stitches.”  
  
“It doesn’t. Just clean it out.”   
  
A pink tinge still clung to Gerard’s cheeks. Frank dropped the towel back into the bowl and rummaged through the first-aid kit that was lying next to it. He pulled out a bottle of alcohol and soaked a bunch of cotton balls. Gerard exhaled audibly through his nostrils when Frank pressed the cotton to his skin and the white fibers immediately bloomed with color.   
  
Frank knew that Gerard could easily have done this by himself while staring into the bathroom mirror with the crack near the bottom. As he watched the blood soak through, Gerard slowly encircled Frank’s wrist in his hand. He’d barely looked away from Frank this whole time.  
  
“How fucked up is this, huh?” Gerard asked with a wry smile. He wasn't just talking about this moment right now, Frank knew.   
  
Frank met his gaze. “You have no idea.”   
  
The cotton was now completely saturated in red. Frank replaced it with a fresh one. Neither of them spoke.   
  
  
*  
 _  
  
Five.  
  
Six.  
  
Seven._  
  
Gerard is there now, holding Frank’s head between his hands and repeating his name over and over again until it barely sounds like a word, just garbled vowels and consonants that mean nothing. Frank can feel him press a trembling palm against his chest, trying to stop the bleeding.   
  
He focuses on the tiny scar above Gerard’s eyebrow. He wants to sit up. He wants to hug Gerard and say it’s okay, he’s alright, they can leave now.  _Atlantic City, motherfuckers, right? Right?_  
  
He blinks. Gerard is still saying his name, and it’s scaring him more than anything else.  
  
“Hey,” he finally coughs, thick through the blood that pools under his tongue. He tries to smile. Christ, this is fucking ridiculous. He has too much to say. He has too little to say.  _I should have told you. You’re a good person, and I love you._  He circles his fingers around Gerard’s wrist and squeezes hard, with all his might. “Tell – tell me that this isn’t it.”   
  
Gerard opens his mouth slightly but doesn’t speak. When he does, it’s barely audible.   
  
“Hey. This isn’t it.” The words are steady and Frank almost believes him, but for the first time, Gerard’s smile shakes at the corners.   
  
Frank closes his eyes.  
  
  
  
 _Eight.  
  
  
  
Nine _  
  
  
  
 **Epilogue.**  
  
“Gerard, listen. I’m a cop. I know Ray’s going to tell you everything, I don’t know if he has already, I just. I was undercover, we were supposed to move in on him as soon as the Kessler job went though. But it wasn’t about that, it isn’t about that anymore.”  
  
“You remember, you said, you said there’s no such thing as good guys or bad guys, right? Us or them.”  
  
“I can’t –  _fuck_. There’s an envelope at my place, it’s behind the TV, okay? It’s in the hole in the wall. Read it. Read everything in it. I wrote down all there is to know. I was meeting with Mikey this whole time, and – god, you need to talk to Mikey, I told him to leave but I don’t know – I don’t know. I wrote it down.”  
  
“Fuck, this is so  _stupid_.”  
  
 _(static)_  
  
“I just. I need you to know that it isn’t about them anymore. Okay? Gerard? I don’t – ”  
  
“I don’t think it ever was.”

 

 


End file.
